Twin sisters aged 16 may have travelled to Syria to become jihadi brides, it is claimed.

The British citizens crept away from their home in the middle of the night and boarded a flight to Turkey.

The girls’ distraught parents raised the alarm after finding their beds empty when they went to wake them for college.

Police discovered their passports and belongings missing and established that they had flown to Istanbul. They alerted counter-terrorism colleagues when the ‘extremely religious’ pair contacted relatives to say they were in Syria.

Officers are investigating how the girls paid for the trip – amid fears that it was bankrolled by jihadi fighters in the Middle East who want them as their wives.

It is thought the sisters, who have nine siblings, travelled to Syria after an elder brother went there to fight for Al Qaeda-inspired militants ISIS.

Mohammed Shafiq, the head of Muslim group the Ramadhan Foundation, said their ‘moderate’ parents were shocked.